andMr. Breslin asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will provide a grant to assist the Ceimicí Teoranta factory at Carndonagh, County Donegal, to reestablish their crab meat processing industry.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - County Donegal Factory.
4.
Ceimicí Teoranta processed crabs at their factory in Carndonagh on a trial basis in 1972 but the project for a crab meat processing industry was not proceeded with because it constituted a threat to crab supplies for an existing factory and existing employment elsewhere. I explained the position to the late Deputy Cunningham in reply to a question on 18th December, 1975, and said I would have the matter looked into again but unless there were new circumstances which would remove the threat to existing employment I considered it unlikely that I would reverse the decision that Ceimicí Teoranta should not establish a crab meat processing industry at Carndonagh. Since December, 1975, the position in this matter has not changed.
Surely the Minister will agree that the main purpose of a factory of this kind is to assist local fishermen? There have been many benefits with regard to extending the fishing season. Will the Minister not agree that the other crab factories he mentioned are quite a distance from Carndonagh? Surely it should be possible to have grants made available to make this industry here viable?
It is true that the employment currently being given in crab processing is not in Carndonagh. However, I do not think it would be prudent to use public moneys to give people jobs in one place at the cost of jobs elsewhere. If it were simply a matter of establishing new jobs without threat to existing jobs and if such representations had not been sharply made to us, then, of course, we would support Carndonagh. However, where this representation has been made and where my advice is that the threat is a real one, there is little benefit in substituting one job for another.
Will the Minister not agree that the jobs provided in this instance would not be factory jobs? It would be extra remuneration for fishermen. In that way it would benefit the area generally rather than the extra jobs that would be provided in the factory itself.
If that were so the Deputy would have a case, but my advice is that this is not so. I am informed there is a market for the produce of the fishermen but it is not a market on the spot. There would not be an increase in the available resource, namely, the catchable crab, or an increase in the number of people working in the industry if there were an extra factory there. Apparently there is a sufficient market and sufficient factory area to process the crab meat elsewhere.
Is it not a fact that this crab meat processing factory was initiated by other than a State organisation, that they moved in and that the only purpose they served ultimately was to bring about a closure of what was the beginning of a small industry? Is the Minister aware that since the closure of this plant the fishermen who were initiated into crab fishing are no longer doing this work because of the great promises made by the other factory? That factory felt it was being injured, it does not give a damn and the fishermen in Donegal are left as they were.
While I recognise the local knowledge of the Deputy, I am informed that one-third of the crab supply for the other factory comes from the Donegal area. I was not aware that the local fishermen had been let down by the other people who made promises to them.
In order to put the matter into its proper perspective I should like to ask the Minister if he is aware of the extent in mileage of the total coast of Donegal starting south of Bundoran and running right up into Lough Foyle? While what he says, that quite an amount of the supplies going to the factory come from the Donegal coast may be true there is more of the coast north of that that has not been fished or catered for by this factory.
Next question, please.